HAPSBURG, hips'berg (Ger. hips'boorg) (properly HABSBURG), the imperial house of Austria-Hungary, so named from the ancestral castle in the canton of Aargau, Switzerland, on the right bank of the Aar. The castle was built in the Ilth century by Bishop Werner, a descendant of Ethico I, a Count of Alemannia, in the 7th century. It stands on the Wfipels berg, a steep rocky situation, whence the name Habtchtsburg (Hawk's Castle). The proprie tors of Hapsburg became at a later period counts of Hapsburg and gradually extended their terri tories. Werner II, who died in 1096, is said to have been the first to assume the title. After the death, about 1232, of Rudolph II, the fourth in succession from Werner II, the family di vided into two branches, the founder of one of which was Albert IV, and that of the other Rudolph III. The latter is known as the Haps burg-Lauffenburg line, which became extinct in the direct male line in 1408. A younger son of Rudolph, called Eberhard, founded the Kyburg branch of the Hapsburg-Lauffenburg line, which did not become extinct 'till 1415 and Godfrey a grandson of Rudolph, who settled in England in the 13th century, there became the founder of the Fielding family, to which the Earls of Denbigh belong, and of which the novelist Field ing was a member. The line descended from
Albert IV is that to which the historical celeb rity of the house is almost entirely due. In 1273 Rudolph, the son of Albert IV, was chosen emperor of Germany or Holy Roman emperor. He is the founder of the reigning house of Aus tria, which is of the line of Hapsburg-Lorraine. From Rudolph to Charles VI the Austrian mon archs were of the Hapsburg male line. Maria Theresa, who succeeded Charles VI, married Francis Stephen of Lorraine, who in 1745 was chosen emperor of Germany. Francis II the third emperor of Germany of the line of Haps burg-Lorraine, was the last who bore that title till the establishment of the new empire, the last of the so-called Roman Emperors?' He changed it in 1806 for that of emperor of Aus tria, and the present imperial house of Austria continues to represent that lino. From the Emperor Rudolph was also descended a Spanish dynasty which began with the Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain), and terminated with Charles II in 1700. Consult Steed, H. W., (The Hapsburg Monarchy' (1913).